She reels her heart in and gets out her laptop. There’s much to be done.
***
After a quick scan for Bad Boys, Lane hops off a trolley in the Middle East and walks a half block down a side street into the deepening shadows of twilight. In the scrawny trees, the birds sing their last sad song, and scruffy children dart in and out between the rusted vehicles. Fall pushes hard against the oncoming night and wood smoke drifts on the breeze.
In spite of the poverty, the desperation, the violence, the pain, the place carries a heavy charge that repolarizes him in some primitive, ineffable way. He knows what those behind the gates can never know, that predictability is a slow, comfortable poison that eventually smothers you to death.
He ducks off the street where a set of cement stairs descend to the basement floor of an old walk-up apartment building. At the bottom of the stairs, a metal-lined door painted a dull shade of rust awaits him, with a minicam mounted above the old spotlight. He stands before the camera and waves silently.
“I think I see the Man,” comes a voice from a hidden speaker. “But I could be fooled now, couldn’t I?”
“Yes, you could,” Lane answers the coded query. “But not by me.”
With a hydraulic hiss, the door swings open and Lane steps into an anteroom with a security scanner. Passing through, he enters the apartment proper. To his left is a neatly maintained kitchen, where a middle-aged woman of mixed race is wiping off the countertop. To the right is a large, open room with a mass of electronics and machinery mounted along both walls. The maze of indicator lights and small displays is broken only by a large Ultrares video screen where an ancient sci-fi movie called The Magnetic Monster plays on in silence.
“I hear you’re a cop without a contract.”
The voice comes from Warhead, who occupies a heavily motorized wheelchair now rotating to face Lane. The rotation reveals a quadruple amputee, a stump of humanity with long hair parted in the middle and a dark brown bristle of beard. His mouth is obscured by a framework that holds a hashish pipe, but his eyes are bright and hard.
“You heard right,” Lane admits. “No more contract. So what else do you hear?”
Warhead ignores the question. On the roof of this building a small dish points up to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and a big fiber cable snakes down here into the basement. Some say Warhead owns the satellite outright. Word on the street is that he’s punched through to the Outernet, although Warhead emphatically denies this.
“You wanna puff?” Warhead offers.
“Don’t smoke much anymore.”
“Suit yourself.” Warhead mutters something in what sounds like an exotic foreign language and the wheelchair moves to a mechanical stall at the far end of the electronics racks. When the chair stops, mechanic grippers poke out, take the pipe, empty it, and refill it with ground hashish from a chrome hopper. A spring-mounted rubber ball comes down, tamps the load, and then the pipe is passed to Warhead’s waiting lips as flame is applied from a butane orifice and he puffs away.
“Good stuff,” he declares as he exhales twin blue clouds through his nose. “Wanna know how I got trimmed to my current dimensions?”
“Sure. Who wouldn’t?”
“Air crash. Dump of plane. An old 737 with its guts ripped out for dope. I was ridin’ shotgun and we lost it comin’ in at night. Plane like that has a high airspeed when you’re landing. Couple of hundred miles an hour. Last thing I knew we were sailing past the last runway light, and the airspeed still said one twenty-five. Landing lights picked up the trees and that was it. Woke up in a hospital in Bogotá with everything clipped clean off.”
Warhead gives Lane a mischievous grin. “But not my pecker. Still got my pecker.”
Lane smiles. He’s heard Warhead tell dozens of different stories about how he parted ways with his limbs. One time, he was the victim of a hideous radiation accident in a covert nuclear lab outside Kabul. Another time, he was tortured by the agents of some tin-pot African dictator. In still another, he was the hapless recipient of a genetic misfire, and fell from the maternal bomb bay as a wingless missile plunging earthward at a ruinous velocity. In any case, the story always ended with the retention of his pecker, phallic redemption to offset his physical calamities.
“After that, they wanted me in porno,” Warhead informs Lane. “Really bad.”
“So why didn’t you go for it?”
“I thought about it, that’s for sure. I had the wood. But most important, I had the focus.”
“The focus?”
“Yeah, your normal male performer has five appendages, if you count his dick. Me, I got only one. Terrific focus. And all kinds of new camera angles.”
“You would’ve been good, but it’s a tough business,” Lane says. “You’re probably better off doing what you’re doing.”
“And speaking of that, what can I do for you?”
“I need an ID package.”
“Cash up front. And not Bird shit.”
“Absolutely. But it’s got to be the very best.”
“Costs more.”
“Not an issue. It has to survive a Class Ten stress test.”
Warhead breaks into a broad grin. “Hey, hey. Now we’re talkin’. So if it’s for around here, it’s gotta be for Pinecrest. Right?”
Lane shrugs. “Can’t say.”
Warhead shrugs back. “Then I never asked.”
Pinecrest
Chapter 11
Concolor
The scent of fresh leather. The relaxed feel of soft cotton. The welcome quiet. The careful presentation of subtle colors.
Even after several days of affluence, Lane still continually wallows in the experience as he leaves the highway and heads west toward the main gate into Pinecrest. The legion of microprocessors inside his car constantly strives toward perfect motion, while the big engine yearns to explode into runaway acceleration. He has his window down, and the wind flutters the fabric of his open shirt and silk sports coat. As he guides the wheel, his big Rolex watch catches the afternoon sun with an arrogant sparkle. He idly fingers the lobe on his ear, mounted in a platinum setting adorned with microcarving. Somehow, the lobe feels fat, swollen with prosperity, just like Rachel Heinz said it would back in Portland.
Allen Durbin, that’s who he is. The lobe chronicles his pseudo-life in great detail. The schooling in Europe, the construction projects in Asia, the electronics consortium in India, the three ex-wives. And now, at last, he has achieved the rarified status of investor: one who simply tends his fiscal fields and watches the seedlings of cash poke through the soil and head toward the sky.
All of which makes him a perfect candidate for Pinecrest. When he met with the compound’s representative on the phone, she politely requested a Class 10 lobe scan to extract the basics and he courteously agreed, holding the phone’s scanner up to his ear. An hour later, she was back in touch, and quite enthusiastic about the possibilities of having Mr. Durbin take up residence. There were several homes available that might suit his needs.
The gate into Pinecrest is a massive structure of reinforced concrete with a cosmetic stucco glaze and a tunnel in the middle where the street passes through. On its roof are crenellations, slots for small weapons that give it a medieval cast.
When Lane arrives at the gate and stops, the security people smile politely and ask how they can help. His car tells them most of what they need to know. After naming the representative he is meeting, he is scanned and his appointment checked. Once inside, the road curves several times through a parklike setting. He enters a village with small buildings set tastefully into the luxuriant vegetation. Above the village, rolling green hills of oak, pine, and fir rise to a soft curtain of fog that hangs limply over their crests, all topped by a clear, blue sky. By design, no houses or roads are visible.
After parking the car, Lane climbs out into the clean air swept in off the Coast Range. He walks a short distance to the realty office, where he meets the representative, a
perky young woman named Nicole Harris, who apparently has never had a bad day in her life.
“Mr. Durbin,” she says to Lane as she puts her fingers over the back of his hand, “I’m so pleased to meet you. Is this your first visit to the Portland area?”
“No. But before, it’s always been on business.”
“Well, this time, I hope we can get you to stay a little longer,” she says with just the right hint of humor and the thinnest glaze of sexual innuendo. “Now, before we go out and look at houses, let me spend a few minutes on the community itself.”
“Of course,” Lane responds as they cross the office to a conference room with a wall-mounted plasma display that she activates with a laser pointer. On the screen, a three-dimensional model of Pinecrest rotates against a black background. As she emphasizes certain facts, the view zooms in, all with no loss of detail. Sixteen square miles of secured living, with an average of .75 acres per house. All medical, professional, and food services available on-site. An eighteen-hole golf course, a scenic pond, bike paths, and jogging trails. The security perimeter includes a buffer zone replete with enhanced dogs, electronic sensors, and twenty-four-hour surveillance. The normal complement of security personnel includes eighty people, fifty on duty and thirty in reserve at an on-site barracks. Plus there’s a secondary reserve of more than two hundred at a central barracks in West Linn. With the exception of the gate, all security measures are cosmetically concealed from the casual viewer, and are carefully designed to harmonize with the community’s environmental integrity.
When they leave the office, Lane follows Nicole’s car up a winding two-lane road into the foothills. Occasionally, they pass a small address number on a cement post, and a gated driveway that disappears into the trees.
A mile later, they pull into one such driveway and, after several twists, arrive at a large, two-story house with a turnaround in front. Although new, the house reflects a popular style from the 1930s, an eclectic marriage of art deco and art moderne. Many of its smooth cement corners and edges have been softened into graceful curves. The railing on the upper deck uses fat metal tubing, and one surface near the entrance gleams with a matrix of blocked glass. On each side of the front door, two fluted columns are inset in the cement and topped by sunrise patterns.
“What if I want it furnished?” Lane asks as Nicole unlocks the front door with her card.
“Then you’re in luck.” Nicole smiles. “This place was chosen as a demonstration site by an interior design firm. I’m sure something could be negotiated, if you want.”
As they make their way through six thousand square feet of oak, teak, silk, marble, leather, chrome, gold plate, and submicron silicon, Lane thinks of all the other residents nestled in similar opulence. What do they do every day in a community like this?
Nicole is not shocked when he says he wants to take possession right away. She’s obviously used to dealing with people backed by astronomical sums of money, people cut free from the normal economic restraints. She does one more lobe scan, interacts with her wireless computer, and the house is his.
After she leaves, he goes upstairs to the master bedroom and walks out onto the south-facing deck, with the afternoon light casting a golden glow onto the gentle bubbling of low-slung forest. He leans against the railing and looks at the fields and vineyards rolling off into the distance. To the south, the cerulean sky glows with sun and promise.
He looks down at his hands curled around the tubular railing, which is painted aquamarine in the modernist style. The light plays craftily across the tendons and the veins, and a thin matting of hair sweeps toward the outer side of his palms. Under the brown, freckled hide, the hands are infused with considerable power, and he tightens his grip slightly on the warm metal, just to make sure it hasn’t fled.
Just to make sure it hasn’t gone south without him.
Because in truth, he longs for the comfort of some mythical lower latitude, always brighter than the present circumstance, always warmer. Yet always receding. An impossible journey.
He turns and walks back into the house, shutting the sliding door behind him. Air-conditioning whispers from the venting system. He pauses by a stairway to a lower level of bedrooms and recreation areas. The whispering air shifts from white to pink and seems to carry the pale and distant sounds of children squabbling. A boy and a girl, he would guess. Children he never had. He walks on to the kitchen, where his once possible wife would be. She leans against the big array of tile counter and writes something in a calendar or journal. Her slim hand guides the pen across the page with a grace and articulation that is beyond him. Her flaxen hair is pulled back and held by a turtle-shell barrette, where it bursts into showers of ringlets.
A soft beep cuts through the silence, and Lane turns to a small color monitor on the wall. The security camera has detected a car pulling into the turnaround out front. Its neural circuitry detects the driver getting out and zooms the figure to full frame. A woman, stylishly dressed in loose cottons, with blond hair brushed back to accentuate the streaks of shading.
“Hello. You must be Allen,” the woman chirps as Lane opens the door. She looks at him with a curious combination of naked appraisal and congeniality. Well-kept middle age flows over her even features.
“That’s right,” Lane answers as he steps out onto the porch.
“I was just talking to Nicole and she told me about you. It’s so nice to see a new face here, and I wanted to welcome you. I’m Virginia Bradford. We live down the road a bit.”
“Well, it’s good to meet you,” Lane replies as he gently shakes her cool hand. “Would you like to come in?” He feels self-conscious in his new role. Social niceties have never come easily to him.
“Oh no,” Virginia replies as she reaches out to pat his wrist. “I just wanted to invite you to a party we’re having tonight. Mostly people from the community. It’s a great way to get acquainted. You will come, won’t you?”
Lane smiles. Her intonation makes it sound like the party would be a catastrophe if he chose not to attend. “I’d be delighted.”
“Oh, good! You can take the shuttle. Just say it’s for the Bradfords. We’re starting with drinks about seven.”
“Got it.”
The light is fading as the driverless shuttle cruises into the turnaround and stops at Lane’s front steps. He appraises the vehicle’s design and notes the compromise between luxury and utility as the door slides open for him. Inside, a hidden speaker bids him welcome in a calm, female voice and then requests a lobe scan from a handheld device mounted in the wooden console between a pair of leather seats.
As the shuttle moves down the driveway it confirms his destination and Lane settles back to take in his new neighborhood. He quickly discovers that the vehicle handles itself with amazing efficiency, rivaling the best of human drivers. A logo on one side of the dashboard confirms that it is Malaysian in origin. By the time they pull onto the main road, he has nearly forgotten that a machine is in control and settles back to watch the Feed on the hi-res display. One hundred fifty channels. Each completely different, all entirely the same.
The vehicle ascends a gentle hillside that holds the residential part of Pinecrest. Ironically, no pines are visible. They’ve been replaced with elaborate landscaping cleverly designed to be tended robotically. Terraces of exotic trees, shrubs, and plants mask most of the residences, revealing only a hint of roof or the watchful glow of a security light.
Lane turns off the Feed and takes a moment to review his mission, as jointly defined with Rachel. They know that Johnny has some kind of ominous connection to Mount Tabor, and that he’s been a prime contractor with the Institute for the Study of Genetic Disorders. Lane has discovered that Pinecrest is a popular residence for the Institute’s upper management. Put it all together and Lane was poised to start probing the Institute people’s connections to Mount Tabor.
Lane looks up and realizes the shuttle is stopping in front of the Bradfords’ huge house, a Neo-French
mansion with a vaulted porch and windows on the main floor. The car’s video system automatically powers down as the door slides open. A hidden speaker announces, “You have arrived at the home of Kenneth and Virginia Bradford. Have a pleasant stay.”
Inside, the party buzz hits Lane as he spots Virginia Bradford standing in a strategic position to greet her guests. A shiny black dress clings to her trim body, terminating at just the right spot to highlight a nicely tanned cleavage. She is sipping a drink and speaking to a woman with diamond earrings of sufficient mass to actually stretch her earlobes.
“Allen!” Virginia rushes over and gives him an alcohol-inspired hug while kissing him on the cheek. “I’m so glad you made it!” She hooks his arm and pulls him forward into a spacious living room filled with clusters of people squeezing off party chatter at one another. “Before you get a step farther, I want you to meet my husband, Tom.” Her breast is planted solidly against the back of his elbow as they make their way through the crowd.
Tom turns out to be a man of medium height and age, athletically trim with a graceful motion to his hands as he animates a point of conversation to a flat-bellied woman in a miniskirt and sleeveless top. “Tom, look who’s here! Our latest arrival! This is my husband, Dr. Kenneth Bradford. Tom, this is Allen Durbin.”
“Glad to meet you, Allen,” Dr. Bradford says. “And this is Ashley.” He nods to the miniskirted woman, who has the prerequisite bulge in her deltoids, along with several hundred dollars’ worth of highlighting in her bubble of blond hair.
“Pleased to meet you both,” Lane says as he shakes hands. Virginia has already wandered back to her greeting post.
“So what brings you to Pinecrest?” Tom Bradford asks.
The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller Page 13
